Before I got into crafting my main expenditure went on handbags. I love them! So I was really excited when my friend Jennifer invited me round to her house and said that she would make a bag for me!

Jennifer very kindly let me go through her stash of fabric, ribbon, flowers and buttons and made an across the body bag for me. It also has smaller handles so that I could hold it if I wanted to. The black fabric is from Ikea and I love the bright colours, they really make me smile and her stitching is beautifully straight, something I cannot do!

Jennifer made the top part of the bag with a lovely vibrant green and accessorised with pink and black ribbon and a flower. AND she did all this whilst I watched and chatted away! Would I be able to make one myself now? Probably not, but then I am very lucky because she has made me a shoulder bag too that I just can't wait to show you.

And the exchange? I am going to show her how to make mini albums and let her rummage through all my papers and that could take a while!

The lovely Nina at Sugar amd Spice gave another fanstastic class the other weekend where we learnt how to make a Flag Book. It looked really complicated but actually its quite easy and looks fantastic, I can't wait to make more!

The papers were quite manly and the Flag Book takes 56 photographs so I thought it would be ideal to make for hubby with photographs of our project in Italy (i.e. demolishing one falling down farmhouse and building a new one!).

I used some rub-ons from Delish for the front..

And mounted lots of little 2 by 3 inch photographs of various stages of our on going project.

There are some tags in the front and back pockets for notes and I stamped a little stamp of an Olive Tree on the back of one and attached some thread to the top of the tags.

When you hold both edges of the book the pages flip over like a little movie!

This is how it looks from above

And from the back!

I have really enjoyed this class and all the lovely ladies that I met on it. I can't wait to make more. We are doing exploding boxes next!

Well the summer holidays seem to have passed by in a flash but it has seemed like ages since I did anything in my craft room. The kids went back to school last week but then hubby was poorly and off work for a week and the dog wasn't great either so my visions for last Tuesday of sitting down with a cup of tea and enjoying absolute silence became two trips to the doctors a trip to the chemist, a trip to the vets and food shopping! The rest of the week didn't get any better but I won't bore you with that!

I had a parcel delivered yesterday with this yummy stuff..

I have been lusting after the Letterpress stuff for ages and when I saw that the Docrafts website had 50% off everything, I couldn't resist!

I have also been encouraging this little guy who is 7 next week and already knows that he wants to be a chef to make some meals on his own. So last week he made this salad, all by himself, cutting and choosing the ingredients himself

And made a tasty salad dressing with lemon, olive oil from our trees in Italy and sea salt. It was yummy and we had them with my favourite lunch, jacket potatoes..

Luckily little one's plans are that when he owns his resturant, I will be a bit old and he doesn't think I should drive so he is going to pick me and hubby up each day and drive us to his resturant where we can eat for free, whatever we want, even if it's not on the menu.

This week my friends and I are organising a joint birthday party for our kids and 60 of their friends at the local cinema. Hopefully at some point I will be able to make some cards!

I hope you are having a great week and thanks for taking the time to read this post, I'm sure you must have all thought I had given up blogging!

It was hubby's birthday in June and I have only just managed to take some photographs of the little mini book that I made for him from the kids.

I used a template that I bought ages ago and printed paper from Pink Petticoat's Big Fella Kit which is here. It has great images and papers for your big and little fellas! Here are some of the decorated pages.

I inked over the paper to make it look a bit more grungy and added some tickets

I changed some photos to black and white and added rub ons.

A star stamp decorated this page with a matching paperclip.

The Manly-iest flowers I could find!

Some buttons and brads.

And the back, both of the kids had half a page to write their message.

The album was held together with some book rings and decorated with ribbons.

Well its just me and my big boy this weekend as hubby and the little one are going to our caravan and someone needs to dog sit! We have negotiated our itinery. Craft shopping in the morning with lunch out, then x-box time (for him not me!) and a film and popcorn in the evening. I am really looking forward to spending some time, just him and me.

Thanks for visiting and have a wonderful weekend, whatever you are doing!

My beautiful friend Clare has kindly passed this award on to me. She has lots of lovely creations on her blog as well as news of her fund raising for St.Wilfred's Hospice and card making sessions with the lovely people there, take a look here.

After getting the award you have to:

1) Thank the person who gave you the award. Thank you so much Clare for thinking of me, I am thrilled to bits!

2) Post the award. Yep done that!

3) List 3 things you about yourself

I was a model for Tixylix (the childrens cough medicine) when I was a child and a little photo of me happily taking my medicine was on chemist counters up and down the country

I am vegetarian and have been for 22 years and forget that not everyone else is!

I have been with my hubby since our school days and only went out with him for a laugh. 23 years later we are still together.

4) Post a favourite photo

The fella's in my life. I love them to bits! On holiday, relaxed and happy. Good Times!

When I first received a blog award I hardly knew anyone to pass it on to, how times have changed, now I can think of lots of blogs that inspire me and I enjoy reading. Check out these blogs for some wonderful inspiration.